Zef Eisenberg muscles his way into GlaxoSmithKline

It is every entrepreneur's dream: start a business, build it up into a million-pound company and sell it on to a billion-pound buyer for a handsome profit.

And that is exactly what former body builder Zef Eisenberg has managed to do.

The founder of Maximuscle, the nation's largest supplier of sports nutritional products, recently sold his business to GlaxoSmithKline for £162m - the biggest-ever investment in the sports nutrition sector.

Business heavyweight: Zef Eisenberg set up his Maximuscle company in the 90s

Eisenberg, 37, who was the brand's largest single shareholder outside
of Darwin Private Equity, which bought Maximuscle in 2007 for £75m,
said the approach from GSK came 'completely out of the blue'.

But then GSK, a dominant force in the world's healthcare and
pharmaceutical arena, is keen to penetrate the sports and nutrition
market-Hardly surprising considering it is valued at around £100m in the
UK alone.

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GSK, which declared a pre-tax profit of £7.9bn on a turnover of
£28.4bn in 2009, already owns top brands Lucozade, Horlicks and Ribena,
but the deal will help develop its consumer healthcare business.

It will mean a greater saturation of the European market for
Maximuscle which is already available in shops including Asda, Boots and
Argos. Eisenberg will stay involved as a consultant for GSK.

Sports nutrition has grown phenomenally since Guernsey-based
Eisenberg founded the company 15 years ago, investing £3,000 - 'every
single last penny' he owned.

He said: 'It was always my goal from early on to build the company and have an exit, originally to one of the big food boys.

'But you could say Glaxo is even better. To sell to them is not only a
massive sign of approval for Maximuscle but they are more than capable
of taking the brand to the next level.'

GSK will continue to benefit, as Maximuscle has done, from the nation's obsession with image and the growing gym market.

When Eisenberg started the company - disillusioned with the
existing sports-nutrition sector - gyms were primarily for
bodybuilders and powerlifters. They were the ones using Maximuscle's
energy drinks and protein providers.

Today, gyms are used by devotees of all sports and exercise.

Maximuscle achieved £85m worth of sales last year, up from £69m in 2009.

But there is still work to be done. With around 12m sports
participants in the UK and only about five per cent of those using
sports food and nutrition products, GSK will need to make Maximuscle
more visible. It is unlikely to be too long before the brand appears
alongside Lucozade and other such drinks in convenience shops.

A newcomer in 2009's Sunday Times Rich List, last year Eisenberg was ranked 1,001 with a £62m fortune.

The key element, he said, when seeking an attractive exit is to 'make
sure you have at least three years of increasing sales, an effective
management team, a business that does not rely on you for everything,
and accounts that are 100 per cent kosher and properly audited'.

The entrepreneur himself, who could easily retire if he wanted to, now plans to flex his muscles in other areas.

First up: a chain of gyms, which he intends to open overseas later this year.

So, while the business heavyweight may now be, as he put is, 'out' of Maximuscle, he is certainly not finished.